

She was admitted to Goldwater Memorial Hospital on Roosevelt Island in May 1995 after suffering respiratory failure. Her mother died in 1975 and her brother in 1985. Her brother, to whom she also was very attached, was estranged from their mother. Throughout her adulthood, Wright remained close to her mother and never married despite receiving a number of proposals. Make Me Real, which features another of Wright's childhood dolls, and Ocracoke in The Fifties, her only book written for adults, have been published posthumously.ĭare Wright's photographs were exhibited for the first time in 2012 by Fred Torres Collaborations. Another children's work, Lona: A Fairy Tale, features photographs of Wright herself dressed as a fairy princess, while using another doll in identical costume to give the illusion that Wright's character has been "transformed" to doll-size by a wicked wizard. Out of print for many years, it was reissued in 1998, introducing Wright to a new generation of readers. It was followed by eighteen other stories. In November 2010, The British Newspaper The Guardian named The Lonely Doll one of the 10 Best Illustrated Children's Books of all time.

The book made The New York Times Best Seller list for children's books. In 1957, she photographed her childhood Lenci doll, Edith, along with two teddy bears bought at FAO Schwarz, for her first children's book, titled The Lonely Doll. In 1935, she was cast in a small role as a maid in a stage production of Pride and Prejudice, which she performed in Washington, D.C.

Wright graduated from Laurel School in Shaker Heights in 1933 at the top of her class, and relocated to New York to attend the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. Wright spent her formative years in Cleveland Heights. The siblings did not meet again until Dare moved to New York City in her twenties. Her parents divorced when she was young, and she was raised by her mother, the portrait artist Edith Stevenson Wright, while her brother, Blaine, went to live with his father, Ivan Wright, a theater critic in New York City. Wright was born in the Thornhill section of Vaughan, Ontario, Canada, but spent her childhood in the United States, growing up in Cleveland, Ohio. She is best known for her 1957 children's book, The Lonely Doll. Dare Wright (Decem– January 25, 2001) was a Canadian–American children's author, model, and photographer.
